146

Icon
Posted on May 13, 2016 by David M Willis

146 thoughts on “Icon”

  1. butts

    yaay! happy selfie time! NO ANGST HERE

    1. Clif

      Never.

    2. Aeron

      I’m thinking along the lines of the Kamala Khan & Logan pic.

      1. Lolly

        OMG loved that part so much. He looks so grumpy. I sent a picture of that selfie to my friend and it singlehandedly convinced her to start reading Ms. Marvel.

  2. Ana Chronistic

    no stick pls

    1. kkiten

      Oyay you’re back! (I was worriess)

    2. Ana Chronistic

      gah I hate this borrowed iPhone keyboard

      also hi everyone I fell into a rabbit hole of “Comcash will set up the damn internet whenever they fucking feel like it” Friday the 13thness

      1. Doctor_Who

        Ah, Comcash. Amazi-Girl’s worst villain.

        1. Tacos

          Isn’t it everybody’s worst enemy?

        2. Clif

          Comcash, the villain we deserve.

        3. Mordecai

          It’s also the villain we need. To protect us from Time Warner Cable *shudders*

        4. Deanatay

          All cable companies are villains. For me, it’s Charter Communications, and they’re total asshats. In fact, they should form a league to plot super-villainy on a vast scale.

        5. legobil

          South Park cable companies: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M0sAVtOt2wA 😀

        6. ShadowJack

          As a note, Charter bought Time Warner cable.

      2. Durandal_1707

        Didn’t they finally give in and start allowing third-party keyboards a while ago? So you should be able to install something decent like Swype.

        1. Ana Chronistic

          What part of “borrowed” did you miss =|

          yay they “installed” our cable

          by which I mean some dude literally put it outside and that’s it

  3. inqntrol

    Oh Dorothy, if only you knew what is happening.

    1. Cephalo the Pod

      If only ANYONE knew what is happening.

    2. Charles RB

      Well she did just see Amazi-Girl use violence – on what appears to have been someone not using violence – and look for an excuse to have a longe fight, while strongly implying she likes it. Dorothy can see part of it happening and doesn’t care.

      1. Clif

        The event was ongoing when we started watching it. We didn’t see if violence was used in the theft, but it’s highly likely that AG was reacting to violence used at her. Rather than look for an excuse for a long fight, she was giving the perp a chance to stand down, which he intelligently took. The fact that Dorothy doesn’t care is a rather strong indication that things didn’t go down as you are imagining them.

        1. Commodore Jeep-Eep

          Or, more likely, she’s caught up in the whole superhero fucking horseshit and hasn’t figured it out.

        2. Obi Kemnebi

          Pretty sure AG saw a dude grab a bag and run off with it, chased him down, and after punching him hard enough to knock him to the ground, threatened by implications to beat him to a bloody pulp for petty theft. And I’m 99% certain it’s her method of coping with Danny’s so-called “betrayal”. Amber is upset and doesn’t know what to do, so she curled up in a corner of her mind while AG uses misplaced aggression on someone she feels “deserves” it to release pent up emotional pressure.

        3. thejeff

          I think you’re basically right about the psychological process, but you’re extrapolating a lot about how far she’s gone. We don’t know what led up to that first punch we saw. You can guess that it was unprovoked. You could guess that the thief offered violence – either to AG or to the person he grabbed the bag from. We simply don’t know.
          It’s definitely looking like escalation, but don’t jump to far in making it even worse than we’ve been shown.

  4. DarkoNeko

    Fangiiiiirl

  5. Wheelpath

    Wait, I know you said no one’s going to die, but please let this be setting up for
    **spoilers**
    a Zero/V moment, because I love those way too much.

  6. kkiten

    Quick! Tell Dorothy about your feelings so that she can help you find closure and forgiveness!

    1. butts

      And, in this angstless parallel universe, it turns out that Joyce and her family were having a hilarious misunderstanding, and none of them are really hypocritical homophobic hyperreligious prickmuffins. Oh, and Ethan gets a boyfriend.

      1. SgtWadeyWilson

        *Pulls the angstless parallel universe’s drama tag.* I think you dropped this!

    2. Truk2

      If anyone could find the links and do something sensible about it, it’d be Dorothy… if she wasn’t busy being distracted by being a fangirl, and following the easy surface story in front of her. Kinda like Billie in that way.

      Bad journalist! be more hardnosed and get to those important facts!

      1. N0083rP00F

        Because fads sell papers that nobody but septuagenarians and coupon clippers read them any more.

    3. Bagge

      Amazi-girl doesn’t do feeling. Feelings imply the possibility of imperfection.

  7. newllend(henryvolt)

    I guess you and your boyfriend tends to differ.

  8. Tacos

    Just don’t expect AG to do the duckface with you in that selfie, Dorothy.

    1. Plasma Mongoose

      Ho one should ever duckface.

      1. Doctor_Who

        Howard the Duck humanfaces when he takes a selfie.

      2. Tacos

        Tell that to the umpteen bajillion people who do it on Facebook and other places.

        1. DarkoNeko

          Facebook is bad and you should feel bad

        2. Disloyal Subject

          It is handy if you ever want to be horrified by how many kids your former classmates are having.

        3. JustCheetoDust

          Or find out where food trucks are going to be.

        4. DarkVeghetta

          Pretty much, Disloyal. Pretty much.

  9. Cerberus

    Yes, Dorothy, good, remind her of how she’s actually looked to as a moral example and so maybe shouldn’t become the type of vigilante who looks for excuses to injure people further.

    1. Rosicrucian

      I don’t know. Dorothy’s still kind of playing into Amber’s narrative here. Might not be that healthy.

      1. Orion Fury

        Thought that pause in the fourth panel she does seem to realize what is happening.

  10. TrueVCU

    Wouldn’t Dorothy taking a selfie with Amazi-Girl then give the police cause to question HER about AG’s wherabouts?

    1. Brute

      not if she doesn’t share it. she most likely wants it for her own collection

      1. TrueVCU

        Why else would you take a selfie if not to immediately put it on social media?

        1. Disloyal Subject

          It’s a gratifying memento.

        2. Clif

          And therefor needs to go on social media to amplify the gratification. That is how it works, isn’t it?

        3. TrueVCU

          Those dopamine receptors aren’t going to fire themselves

        4. DarkVeghetta

          I’m going to use this as a quote, sexually. I thank ye’.

        5. Mordecai

          Seconded

        6. TrueVCU

          I am as a river unto my people

        7. Disloyal Subject

          Bah. This ‘sharing’ nonsense has gotten out of hand! That’s no way to amass a treasure hoard!

        8. SgtWadeyWilson

          Yeah, but slumbering for centuries on a mound of selfies is uncomfortable on the scales, I’d stick with precious metals.

        9. Clif

          Yes, I admit it. I laughed.

    2. Travalanche

      And wouldn’t “enthusiastic selfies with a violent vigilante” be something of a liability come candidate vetting?

      1. Travalanche

        Oooo Jason grav. I’m good with that

      2. Urukak

        Eh, compared to Mike’s pic of her “being sexually active with her college boyfriend” that’s hardly even a blip on the radar.

        1. Travalanche

          I totally forgot about those. Didn’t she purge them, though?

        2. TrueVCU

          Like Mike doesn’t have a backup.

        3. Clif

          Backup Mike. Lurking in the shadows taking notes. Ready to take over if anything ever happens to original Mike.

    3. Urukak

      I mean, it is hypothetically possible to take a selfie and then NOT post it on any social media or send it to any of your friends.

      1. TrueVCU

        INCONCEIVABLE

        1. Some1

          You keep using that word, I do not think you know what it means.

        2. Some1

          Crap got the line wrong

          You keep using that word, I do not think it means what you think it means.

    4. DarkoNeko

      only if she shares that image.

    5. Cephalo the Pod

      The police already know she reports about Amazi-Girl, don’t they? I mean, sure, she only publishes in a university newspaper, but you’d think that at least one campus officer would hear about a “superhero” being talked about in said paper.

      1. Cerberus

        I wonder if they’ll be taking that investigation a bit more seriously now that there’s been a major news making incident of campus violence, thus making the idea of vigilantes much less harmless in their eyes.

        1. Clif

          where harmful in their eyes = making the campus police look bad.

        2. Cerberus

          Yeah, I think we’ve seen quite clearly with the Ferguson attempted arrests and trials against protesters that many police believe “making us look bad” is the worst crime anyone can commit and thus requires the most resources to prosecute and arrest.

  11. Dashus Jovisua

    Oh man, Willis… The way you’ve been handling Amazigirl/Amber is fascinating. This is the most interesting superhero deconstruction I’ve read in a long time, and it fits flawlessly within a series I usually think of as “slice of life”. Mad props.

  12. Stephen R. Bierce

    People say Superman/Lois Lane. I disagree. Superman/Jimmy Olsen.

    1. Plasma Mongoose

      *remembers that Superman was a super-dick to Jimmy a lot in the Silver Age of comics*

      1. Disloyal Subject

        What, Jimmy Olsen exists outside comics where Superman’s a dick to him? Inconceivable!

    2. Doctor_Who

      That makes Daisy Perry White.

      “Great Ceasar’s Ghost! Did he have a chest window?!”

  13. Mr. Mendo

    The sense of wonder is giving Dorothy some much needed humanity. I don’t know if I should be happy or scream, “This should not be!” 😉

  14. Nono

    Running count of people who admire Amazi-Girl:

    -Dorothy
    -Jason
    -Other Rachel
    -Agatha
    -Daisy
    -Becky

    I think that’s it? Not sure I should count Dina since she knows who Amazi-Girl is.

    1. Clif

      Missed a big one. Joyce after she saved Becky. She wasn’t about to criticize Amazigirl for being reckless given her own behavior.

      1. Leorale

        Jacob, too, and probably more. She seems to be riding high at the moment.

        1. Cerberus

          Yeah, there was a lot of goodwill before the Dingdong Whiteboard Bandit case and even more after the Toedad shooting. Which I guess makes this collapse necessary to change seeing as how right now she has everyone telling her that what she is doing is perfect.

    2. Aquatus

      Dina most certainly admires Amazi-Girl, regardless of knowing her secret identity. After all, Amazi-Girl saved her Becky.

  15. Teddae

    Just don’t mention anything about Sal and that incident and we’ll be fine…right?

  16. Henry

    Will the information in the alt-text become relevant to a slipshine comic down the line?

    1. Tacos

      The previous Slipshine already featured restraints in it.

    2. Dean

      A ball-gag is a kind of restraint. So maybe!

  17. Cerberus

    Comic Reactions:

    Panel 2: Okay, her alters are now fully taking over in “crisis moments”. That’s… super and not at all a really bad sign. I mean, I might be biased because those moments where that happened when I was younger were the wake-up call I needed to stop pushing over-compartmentalization instead of self-care and integration, but… eeesh, this seems catastrophically bad for her mental health and much different in tone than Amazi-girl’s previous flight to the roof.

    Things are getting really bad in her head and I’m not sure she’s in a state to recognize how much she’s fucking up her life right now in her traumatic response.

    Panel 3: Dorothy, you fangirl, but still, as I note above, this is really necessary even though it can also backfire and reinforce bad habits (yes, clearly Amazi-girl must be a perfect moral example, now to enforce every law no matter how petty with extreme application of violence). But it’s a reach out nonetheless and she’s going to need those if she’s going to get off this bad delusional road she’s on.

    Cause right now, the only thing protecting her from jail is the fact that the student body likes her more than they fear her.

    Panels 4-6: Dorothy, you fangirl nerd.

    1. Bagge

      Adorable dotty is adorable

    2. Clif

      Cerberus, Panel 2 indicating alters taking over in crisis moments is a perverse reading of the comic, but at the same time I have to admire the way you’ve crafted a consistent interpretation. Your interpretation is not mine, but I have to admit you are cumulatively persuasive.

      In “the only thing protecting her from jail is the fact that the student body likes her more than they fear her,” you could substitute Dorothy, Danny, and Ethan individually for student body. These are the three that could turn her over. Mike may know her secret as well, though you could argue it either way, but is a special case.

      1. Cerberus

        I would agree on Dorothy, Danny, and Ethan having that power as well. Hell, Dina too as an outside chance if Amazi-girl ever decided that Becky was a lawbreaker and must be punished (very very unlikely in my opinion).

      2. Cerberus

        Also, I have to smile at the mental image of my perversity being persuasive. 🙂

  18. Bagge

    “Sometimes Amazi-girl is needed”

    Amber needs her for support, but given that Amaziegirl just dumped her boyfriend I think she rapidly starts to become more of a burden than of support.

    1. Dean

      “Sometimes Amazi-girl is needed” = “Sometimes I just need to go out and punch someone who I’ve decided deserves it.”

      1. Bagge

        Yeah, that is the big problem with her coping mechanism (one of them…) it’s not like she put on a mask and run a parkour race or something. Amazi-girl is a superhero and needs to do superheroics. If she DOESN’T catch criminals she is just Amber in a mask.

        So when Amber needs to be Amazi-girl she needs to catch criminals, and she need to do it superhero style (beating them in the face is apparently acceptable).

        That’s why she pushed Mike down on the floor over some drawings of dicks.
        That’s why she desperately tried to goad Sal and her gang into a fight
        That’s why she almost died chasing ToeDad
        That’s why she just punched someone in the face.

        1. Cerberus

          All of this.

          And I think that’s why we’re seeing Amazi-girl start to fray around the edges. Because when she needs to be Amazi-girl and pull herself out of her fear of her violent thoughts as Amber or her panic attack as Amber, then she, as you note, has to find a criminal to catch and beat up with superheroics.

          And so when she can’t find one or really has it in her head that she needs to confront one particular “criminal” (*coughcough* Sal *coughcough*), then it makes it that much easier to relax her moral definition of crime needing superheroics in order to justify the face punching she feels she “needs” to “escape” Amber (which if she’s DID like I think, that is literally the worst coping strategy she could possibly have outside of literally killing people).

          Suddenly underaged drinking becomes a major crime justifying attempted beatdowns or angry dressing downs. Suddenly the definition of initiated the violence gets a little more hazy. And potentially down the road, being a little more loose with the definition of who’s a “criminal”.

      2. Orion Fury

        There also is the inverse, AmaziGirl is only needed sometimes, and not all the time. NormaGirl is needed too.

        1. Bagge

          I’m not sure Amber agrees.

        2. Cerberus

          Yeah, and I’ve been there with regards to alters. You dump all the unwanted stuff on an alter and then it becomes harder and harder to believe they could ever be needed or wanted or useful even though they totally are and may be the piece that helps you figure yourself out.

          Hopefully Amber sorts her shit out over the course of the comic and realizes that Amber has her own value to the whole and is not just a garbage dump for bad emotions.

  19. Jim the Fish

    Amazi-Girl rarely calls upon us at a moment of our choosing

  20. Adam Black

    Dorothy,
    You are such an enabler.

  21. Tom T.

    Professionalism, Dorothy. Peter Parker never took selfies with Spider-Man.

    1. Bagge

      Did he never do the old “dress up someone else as spiderman and pose together to prove that we are not the same person” ploy?

      What I’m saying is that “Dorothy is totally not amazi-girl”. She has a selfie to prove it.

  22. Idontcarenomore

    Amber/AG has been hanging on by a thread for a long time: and she keeps bouncing back, more or less.
    A well drawn character. But I’m wondering just how much longer this is going to keep going now.
    She’s dumped her bf for suggesting she lay off being AG for awhile and didn’t want to hear him say he liked Amber best. My guess is because she knows it’s not true. Danny may be worried for Amber now, but he really digs being ‘Mr. AG”.
    So now she has no base at all: except the lawbreakers to go take her angst out on.
    What now?

    1. Bagge

      I think we will see an enormous freakout once Amber resurfaces, and I think she will be much more wary about Amaziegirl in the future.

      In short, we might go from batman to green goblin.

      1. Clif

        There are things that she has difficulty handling, namely things related to her father and Sal, but outside that range she does rather well. She does considerably better than hanging on by a thread. Danny may not be her base now, but in that case she had no base before Danny came along. Why you think Amber would freakout and reject her Amazigirl identity is beyond me. As she told Danny, that identity is more important to her than Danny is.

        Even if I accepted that Amber is completely insane and a totally different individual than Amazigirl, something I don’t do for a second, how you go from there to her being more wary about Amazigirl in the future … well it just does not compute. Perhaps you could explain how you got there?

        1. Bagge

          First of all – it’s a guess about the future. I may or may not be right.

          As you say, Amber/amaziegirl has a hard time to handle things that concern Sal, and now she has associated Danny with her. Just seeing him talk to her sent Amber into what I think is the biggest freakout to date
          – She immediately jumped into her Amazi-girl persona, without mask
          – She refused to listen, explain or allow any deflection of the situation
          – She immediately decided that associating with Sal was a betrayal worthy of a breakup
          – She broke up in a manner designed to hurt and blame Danny
          – Her body language and words were more similar to Blaine’s mannerism than anything we have seen her do to date.
          – And she then immediately went off to punch a thief, in broad daylight

          I don’t think this is Amber making a choice based on the situation – I think this is her FREAKING OUT and pushing Danny away in whatever way she think is most effective so she won’t risk further “betrayal”.

          If that is true, at some point Amber will realize just how hurtful that was, both to Danny and herself, and one possible reaction is to blame Amaziegirl for it. If that happens we will have a much more antagonistic relationship between her identities, which is why I brought up the green goblin analogy.

        2. thejeff

          I’ve actually been wondering if this sequence will lead to a full split between Amber and AG, if they’ll stop sharing memory. Amber idealizes AG as much as anyone – she won’t be able to cope with her losing control and thus won’t even remember it.

          That said, I really don’t think Amazi-Girl is going to full on villain status. I just can’t see Willis taking the story there, even if it does seem to be headed in that direction.

        3. Bagge

          Yeah, I realise I chose a really bad metaphor. I don’t think Amazi-girl will be a villian, i think that Amber and Amazie-girl will become less friendly with each other.

          I think Amaziegirl will express more of Amber’s self loathing (“Amber is weak and can’t be trusted with this. i take over.”), and Amber will express more of a distrust with Amazi-girl (“Amazi-girl hurt Danny. That was what she was supposed to stop ME from doing. I can’t trust her any more.”)

          …Smeagol and Gollum, maybe? Hulk and Banner? Not quite Jekyll and Hyde.

        4. Cerberus

          Yeah, that’s where I see this going (though that might just be because I’m very very much on the Amber/AG is DID bandwagon). She’s pushing hard on the boundaries of these two, trying to make them as distinct as possible and separated from each other for reasons she believes are very good, but I could definitely see a difference of opinion forming between AG and Amber over this last course of action.

          And I can definitely see the alters starting to fully disassociate and stop sharing their memories. Which sadly, would make the process of reintegrating a lot lot harder. Especially when trying to handle it independently.

    2. thejeff

      I think Danny does like Amber best. I think he was completely honest there. However cool it is dating a superhero, he’s been pushing to date Amber instead (or in addition to) pretty much since he found out. Even suggesting they stage a public breakup, so he can date Amber without secret ID worries.
      Amazi-Girl dumped him mostly because she was in full freak-out over Sal mode, but also because he suggested she stop. That’s not something you do lightly to someone in her state. Depending on just how disassociated her disassociated identities are, that’s basically an existential threat to the Amazi-Girl alter.
      Not how he intended it and he doesn’t really grasp how disassociated they are, but likely how AG took it.

    3. trlkly

      Pretty sure she was upset at him because he asked her to stop being Amazi-Girl for a while. There’s not a chance in hell that Danny was lying there, because, if he was, then he had no reason to say it or try to stop her.

      And she is losing her coping mechanism. She used to be able to function fine around Sal. Ever since Sal saved her, she’s been afraid of her, rather than just angry. Remember back when AG was snarky about her?

      She has been flirting with dissociative identity disorder for a long while. That type of extreme compartmentalization is not healthy. That she needed to switch personalities to cope is not a sign of someone mentally healthy. She clearly is not in control of when AG comes out–or else she wouldn’t have come out when not in costume.

      Whether she will have completely dissociated remains to be seen. But, even if she hasn’t. it’s clear that switching to her AG persona made things worse, and it would a good thing if Amber realized this once she’s in a better headspace.

      1. Cerberus

        Yeah, she’s not doing mentally well at all. And she might be running more on a combination of coping strategies she had for her dad and coping strategies taught by her dad right now than actual coherent decision making.

        Overall it’s a bad headspace and she can do a lot more damage to herself and others in this headspace if she’s not careful.

        And I’m really hoping this is becoming the trough of an Amazi-girl/Amber starts to process and become aware of her mental situation and tries to start improving its ability to function and cope with the outside world without this ultraviolence and conspiracy theories about tween armed robbers comic arc.

        1. thejeff

          I really hope so too. I can’t see the bottom getting much lower without her becoming a completely unsympathetic villain. She’s already there for a lot of commenters, apparently.

  23. SDGlyph

    “Sometimes Amazi-Girl is… needed.” Oh yeah, uh-huh. I see what you did there.

    1. DonDueed

      It’s a clever line, isn’t it? We know that Amber is saying she needs AG for coping. But to Dorothy, it sounds all heroic and Mighty Mouseish. “Here I come to save the day!”

      1. Cerberus

        It’s a nice line, especially in a text medium where tone is more implied than outright presented. It’s also very similar to her “No need to thank me… it was my pleasure” line from last comic. It could sound all humble superhero to Dorothy, but we know its really about AG feeling like she needed to punch out somebody’s lights out to cope with stuff.

  24. Doopyboop

    I can see where people think Dorothy acting like this is weird. It really is kinda…interesting. When Amazi-girl beat the crap out of Blaine, she was concerned, and here she is concerned about the cops, but she doesn’t seem so concerned about the thief being beaten up. I think it’s a combination of being starstruck by Amazi-girl, getting to a point where she thinks she can trust her, and just not realizing how bad things are getting. The poor girl isn’t psychic so… she just sees Amazi-girl as this amazing badass hero and doesn’t see the flaws yet.

    1. DonDueed

      This is somewhat irrelevant to your point, but it was Amber, not AG, who beat up Blaine. I didn’t notice that until I did a reread after figuring out the “blush” clue (thanks for the hint, Willis). Of course that’s only really significant if you think the two personas are really separate alters, which (in my opinion) they don’t seem to be.

      1. Locke

        I’m not so sure. I think ag who beat him up followed by a rapid revert to amber after danny was “safe”

        1. trlkly

          Nope. That’s why, when Dorothy asks her if Amazi-Girl beat him up, she said no. The implication has always been that she was “Amber” at those times, not “Amazi-Girl,” who is in control of her emotions.

        2. thejeff

          It’s very clear in that sequence if you watch the blushes, not to mention the tags. Amazi-Girl vanishes when Blaine grabs Danny and Amber starts flashbacking. The entire beatdown is Amber. Amazi-Girl doesn’t come back until after the scene is over.
          She loses the voice with the first kick, which is another clue, but she’s already Amber by then. Amazi-girl isn’t even tagged.

  25. JBento

    Because my brain does weird things sometimes (HAH, sometimes):

    Let us assume, for the purposes of this discussion, that Amber and Amazi-Girl are two separate identities (i.e., that she DOES have DID – some people have claimed that she doesn’t have some mandatory traits of it, others that those traits aren’t mandatory; I make no claim to knowing enough about DID to make a call either way), and that, therefore, Amazi-Girl is the Blaine-affected identity – we certainly have seen her being abusive towards Danny in the emotional department.

    Is it possible that Amazi-Girl is also abusive towards Amber? That Danny being near Sal was a convenient excuse for her to cut off Amber from him, isolating her further and making her more and more reliant on Amazi-Girl? If so, does that mean she might go after Ethan next? Dina?

    1. dralou

      Amazi-Girl is the persona who’s NOT affected by Blaine. Amber is the one who mistreated Danny, and in her mind she’s added that to the pile of reasons why she’s a bad person who should be left somewhere to rot alone.

      AG is her way to act as an upright, good, useful, and all around pleasant to be with, person (if you’re not a criminal). To prove others (because she can’t believe it herself) that she’s worth something.

      1. Bagge

        …which is why it is so scary to me that it was AMAZI-GIRL who dumped Danny, and did it in a very aggressive, hurtful and – yes – abusive manner that was way to similar to Blaine for comfort.

        1. dralou

          Amber/AG may not see it, but Sal blurres the lines. As Spencer said, Sal is the “bad criminal”, she’s the one that AG is allowed to hate. In her presence, all the toxic behaviour Amber learned from her father is allowed to show up because both personas agree that Sal is the enemy, and the part of AG who’s supposed to keep an eye open for bad behaviours (in others AND in herself) just shut down.

        2. Cerberus

          All the this. Sal reveals the lie behind Amber’s push for pure separation. They’re still both in the same head, still awash in the same neurotransmitters, still given the same awful Blaine training, still sharing the same memories (for now, that might change soon or might have already changed). Even if Amazi-girl fully disassociates, she’s still going to be impaired by Sal and the triggers seeing her generate.

      2. JBento

        Not… quite? Amazi-Girl has mistreated Danny in at least one blatant occasion: when he called her Amber. There’s probably more.

        Amazi-Girl is very much affected by Blaine, just in the opposite manner Amber is. While Amber has become introverted and shy and, well, mostly Danny-like, Amazi-Girl is right on track to become Blaine 2.0.

        1. dralou

          Huh. You’re right. It’s all a matter of perspective: Amber sees AG as a protector, perfect and right. And the more she gives power to this “protector”, the more she gains confidence in her correct choices, giving her more and more leniency. Losing sight in the process that she’s merely part of herself, therefore as fallible as herself…

        2. thejeff

          And this recent bit, where Amazi-Girl lashes out at Danny, breaking up with him and pushing him away from Amber, is a big crack in that armor. Amazi-Girl losing control and not being the perfect and right protector is going to be a big shock to Amber and a big change in their relationship.
          Though she may be in denial about it for awhile.

        3. Cerberus

          I’m pretty sure that Blaine’s years of abuse and the singular instance of the robbery was what birthed the split in the first place. So, in essence, they are both the Amber who was directly affected by Blaine and his emotional attack when she was already emotionally vulnerable and traumatized (I’ve gotten way less enamored of viewing one alter as the “original” after a quarter-century of living with the condition).

          Amazi-girl just believes she somehow isn’t and thus must protect the Amber who is, even though we see with her devolutions with Sal that she’s not immune to the same fight or flight reflexes her PTSD with Sal trigger and it’s why Sal’s presence makes Amazi-girl worse as an alter and as a person.

        4. JBento

          I just went back and checked the strips of the robbery incident (eugh, more Blaine, gakk). And you know what? There’s an Amber-blush here: http://www.dumbingofage.com/2014/comic/book-4/01-the-only-dope-for-me-is-you/hostage/

          But there’s no Amber blush here: http://www.dumbingofage.com/2014/comic/book-4/01-the-only-dope-for-me-is-you/freezeup/ (there are red eyes, though, and I think my inability to see a blush here might be because of the overall colouring of the specific strip).

          The tag is Amber in both, and Willis is pretty consistent with the tagging. So, Amber still did the stabbing… aaaaand? Amazi-Girl is Amber’s way of processing her use of violence? Amazi-Girl is less a defensive mechanism for her mental health, and more a defensive mechanism for her self-image (i.e., Amber can’t go around being violent at people, because that’d mean she was bad, but Amazi-Girl can, because Amazi-Girl isn’t Amber and isn’t bound by the same rules, and even if she were it wouldn’t be Amber’s responsibility?)?

          I feel like I should add a couple of gazillion question marks over this whole post and mark it as “wild guessing speculation.” Damn you Willis, and your comic that would require me to take a psychiatry course to maybe correctly interpret!

    2. Spencer

      Per Amber’s words, Amazi-Girl exists to protect Amber. That Amber cannot express rage, that being angry is an unforgivable sin on Amber’s part, and she needs to dissociate from it so she doesn’t inevitably kick the shit out of her loved ones. With that in mind, I don’t think Amazi-Girl is trying to separate Amber from everyone, just people she perceives as a threat. If Amber hasn’t resurfaced since her initial switch to Amazi-Girl after seeing Sal, then it was AG who texted Ethan to tell him that she was no longer speaking to Danny.

      I think with being heaped with praise by people around her, Amazi-Girl has learned that asserting power over people is how she gets what she wants, and because Amber can’t conceptualize Amazi-Girl as toxic to her, because Amber is a shitty violent coward who cannot be trusted with the nice boyfriend, she can’t process that Danny didn’t deserve to be treated like that. If Amazi-Girl did it, obviously it’s just and correct and if Amber has a problem with it she can shut the fuck up because remember you couldn’t save Ethan?

      Calling Amazi-Girl the “Blaine affected identity” is pretty accurate, I think. Amazi-Girl is the one self assured enough to actually talk shit to Danny, someone Amber has gone at length talking about how he’s too good for her and that she doesn’t deserve him. Amber explodes in guilt and self abuse when engaging in abusive acts and they’re over extremely briefly. Amber has that rage, but she’s terrified of letting it out. Amazi-Girl is perfectly fine expressing that rage and control, because Danny was talking to The Criminal and trying to stop The Mission, so she deserves to be angry at him and he’s a failure as a partner.

      1. thejeff

        Not just that though: Thinking of them as more DID alters, even if they’re not completely disassociated yet – Danny made a direct attack on Amazi-Girl. “I choose Amber over you and she needs to stop being you.” From a separate alter’s point of view, that’s a direct existential threat. If Danny manages to convince Amber to stop letting Amazi-Girl out, she dies.
        From what little I know of treating DID, that’s a huge error. You never approach it that way.

        Of course, it’s not clear how fully disassociated they are and Danny certainly doesn’t realize it.

        1. Cerberus

          Definitely! For both this and what Spencer said.

          I think it’s why I worry so much about Amber/Amazi-girl’s path and headspace right now. She’s reminding me to much of the dumbass decisions and choices I made back in middle school as well as my fears back then of what I would become if I made the “wrong” choices.

    3. Cerberus

      Yes. Very much so.

      It’s what happened with my alters. I superficially saw one as a paragon of what was right and another as everything I needed to keep bundled inside for the safety of everyone else and so followed with treating it like that and that meant I was absolutely blind to the reality that that paragon personality was actually a bit of a shitheel and that chained up personality was actually pretty healthy and holding on to a lot of the stuff I didn’t want to accept about myself back then. And so a really twisted abusive relationship developed between them where the “paragon” personality was violently abusive towards the “chained” personality and the “chained” personality just took it as her “punishment”. It took a lot of years of more harmonious integration and the “paragon” personality going on a multi-year sulk for them both to sort more of their shit out and for the “paragon” personality to stop being such an abusive little shit.

      So yeah, abusive relationships and dynamics can totally exist between alters. I’m not sure it’s happening yet between Amazi-girl and Amber, but AG/A is definitely not on the right road for avoiding that becoming their dynamic.

      1. JBento

        Wow. That’s, um, I… er… I mean, abuse is pretty fucked up to start with, but when there’s no chance of you actually getting away from your abuser because they’re YOU (or, at least, a part of you), that’s… a circle of hell too torturous for even Dante to have thought of?

        Expression of support through light physical contact applied to a non-bathing suit area. 8/

        1. Cerberus

          Yeah, there’s a reason I do a lot of yelling at Amber/AG through the computer screen to not make the same dumbass mistakes I did when I was kid.

  26. Joey245

    No, bad Dorothy! No puppy treats/selfies for you! Bad girl! Bad! Not helping!

    “Arf arf arf! Arf arf!”

    *sigh* Fine. ONE selfie.

  27. DSL

    Dot’s crossed the line from press to press-agent. This is Chapter 2 of “Dorothy’s picture of herself does not jibe fully with reality” (Chapter 1 was, “This is just a pre-Yale fling, but it hurts that you’re agreeing with that, Walky.”

  28. easykiln

    Huh, didn’t think she’d be into bondage.

    1. Bagge

      It’s on her bucket list
      http://www.dumbingofage.com/2015/comic/book-5/03-the-butterflies-fly-away/confidante/

      1. Cerberus

        You can live your dreams now, Dorothy!

  29. Emily Crowe

    That’s probably how I’d react to having a superhero around….and I don’t even take selfies.

  30. Charles Phipps

    I personally think Amazi-Girl is the one who isn’t a violent psychopath. Which is the scary part about Amber. It wasn’t Amazi-Girl who stabbed Sal, it was Amber. It wasn’t Amazi-Girl who broke up with Danny, it was Amber. It’s Amazi-Girl trying to make up for all of this.

    1. JBento

      Uh, it WAS Amazi-Girl that broke up with Danny. You can tell by both the tags and the lack of blush.

  31. VioletsAreGay

    I feel like Dorothy’s hero-worship thing is gonna cause stuff to go downhill real quick

  32. Liz

    Will Amazigirl have second thoughts? 😀

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